DIRTY GLASSES

It's not in sight it's not in the cards it's not in the bedroom it's not in the estimation it's not in the sprucing up a bit it's not in the spilling of the tea into an ear head shakes the whole body up the wall up the walls and all that sort of textbook flowchart behind the handling of the fan making the unsneezed sneeze all that he has to hold on to towards an abrupt stopping of a nap with your head in the bookcase bottom shelf meanderings there's another word for it but not going to even try to look it up why even look into it around corners or into corners it's not in sight it's not in the cards it's not in the bedroom it's not in the estimation it's not in the sprucing up a bit it's not in the spilling of the tea into an ear head shakes the whole body up the wall up the walls and looking up towards the ceiling rotting as it does down upon the floor sending its notes and waving of the hand twisting the wrist to the strings and brass and winds it's not in the mountains keeping back the somewhere else from the yearning that is here and going out like a match that lit nothing very little going out like nothing very little lit by a match going out can't don't want to lift these thoughts out from under the fist around the mouth to break what send it from some we from someone else send it from the ceiling rotting as it does down upon the floor sending its notes and waving of the hand twisting the wrist to the strings and brass and winds it's not in the mountains keeping back the somewhere else from the yearning that is here and going out like a match like the toilet paper that won't be pulled out from between that which separates one's ass from one's foolishness whatever back to the match which has to do with the mountains and the mountains keeping back the somewhere else from the yearning that is here and going out like an old bulb in the bathroom and the toilet paper back to the toilet paper and the crack and the foolish pulling off of the slowing grinding slowing pain in the left cheek of the face sky and the grumbling in the sky vibrates the tables the chairs the pictures on the walls not there anymore try to remember that the next time there is a use for images all that is left is the tongue retracting from saying what has already been said.

What is that rock for?
Setting the table.
We don't have a table.
I'm making this the table.
We don't even have a this.
Back to that again.
It needs something else.
Like what possibly?
I need to go look for some.  I'll be back in a few days.  Make that several days.
Remember the last time you went off exploring.
No I don't.
That's my point.  I had to rebuild you from scratch.
I wish you had let me figure it out on my own instead of imposing your affairs into the whole chain of paper clips hooked together and calling it me.  I don't see how I'll ever be able to trace my steps back through your meddling to the previous me before that.
The problem is I've had to restart you several times.
So there's no telling how far back it goes.
It is all I have to say.
I might have run out on my own years ago but you had to keep making up stories.
Had to do something with that vague state you get into.

Mention it to the folded arms
Waste the breath and it
Beaten into blood
Her hands painfully lower 
herself into a fountain dry 
far from the center of the world
off and guessing has been

less insistent
eventually fallen behind
the back of the drawer of her underwear
socks with color untangled
by closed eyes
and folded arms
mention it to the folded arms
Waste the breath and it
Beaten into blood
Her hands painfully lower
herself into a fountain dry
far from the center

Off you go then.
What if I stay after all?
Stay?
Yes, if I stay instead of going then I can watch you to make sure you don't start meddling when you feel the need to start me again or rebuild me as you put it and you put it and that's the problem.
That's true.  All right then.  Stay.
Maybe you're trying to trick me into staying so you can engage me in conversation and exert your influence and the stories.
That's true.  All right then.  Go.
Maybe I have a better chance if I stick to my original plan of setting the table and looking for something else to set it with and exploring.  I enjoy exploring.  That's what I tell myself or was it you who said I was a curious sort.
No that wasn't me.  It isn't always me.  Sometimes it's you and when you said that I don't think that's how you meant it.  I am a curious sort is what you said about yourself.  Nothing to do with your going off exploring nothing to do with another table setting.
Another table setting that's when I was about to be off.  Sometimes I could manage to elude you for days at least I think that's what I could manage at times or a couple of times or one time perhaps.
Perhaps.  Or perhaps not.  The thing is the truth is a thing.  You are so fucking slow and you make it so easy to catch up to you.  Sometimes I even toy with you the very idea and spot you a few hours or a few days and I then somehow close the gap you bump into me and I see the fear in your face and how you try to force that terror-cracked face of yours into a smile and the ridiculous exchange ensues and you are so desperate for a bowl of fragments to call you.
You tell me all about the things I tell myself and then I just tell myself that's what I tell myself that I am letting you smear what you scratch off your skin into the stories you smudge on the tops of my cheeks under my eyes under my very nose just to amuse you.  I set the table and I know that when you mock every setting of the table more people end up in the ground entombed beneath where they tried to convince themselves to explore where they used to tell themselves what a curious sort they were.

It's not in sight it's not in the cards it's not in the bedroom it's not in the estimation it's not in the sprucing up a bit it's not in the spilling of the tea into an ear head shakes the whole body up the wall up the walls and all that sort of textbook flowchart behind the handling of the fan making the unsneezed sneeze all that he has to hold on to towards an abrupt stopping of a nap with your head in the bookcase bottom shelf meanderings there's another word for it but not going to even try to look it up why even look into it around corners or into corners it's not in sight it's not in the cards it's not in the bedroom it's not in the estimation it's not in the sprucing up a bit it's not in the spilling of the tea into an ear head shakes the whole body up the wall up the walls and looking up towards the ceiling rotting as it does down upon the floor sending its notes and waving of the hand twisting the wrist to the strings and brass and winds it's not in the mountains keeping back the somewhere else from the yearning that is here and going out like a match that lit nothing very little going out like nothing very little lit by a match going out can't don't want to lift these thoughts out from under the fist around the mouth.


- Max Stoltenberg